Global Rights warns against Green mining without justice for host communities

Global Rights has cautioned that the drive for green mining in West Africa must not repeat past injustices against host communities, insisting that mining wealth must not cost lives.

The organisation stressed that while global demand for minerals critical to renewable energy is rising, justice, dignity, and accountability for affected communities must remain at the heart of the conversation.

Speaking at the opening of the 5th West African Mining Host Communities Indaba in Abuja, Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, said the push for a greener world should not be at the expense of people whose lands, water, and heritage are often destroyed in the process.

“As the world accelerates toward renewable energy and green technologies, the demand for our region’s minerals like lithium, cobalt, bauxite, and others, has never been greater.

“The promise of a greener world must not come at the expense of the dignity, rights, and survival of host communities,” she declared.

Baiyewu recalled her experience in Zamfara State in 2011 during a gold-mining-related lead poisoning crisis that killed hundreds of children.

This is as she linked the tragedy in Zamfara to similar devastation across Nigeria and West Africa.

“Zamfara’s children was the cost of gold mining. Wealth that would never transform their lives or their state,” she said, adding that she and grassroots campaigners like the late Adamu Kotokorshi mobilised Nigerians to resist exploitation and demand justice under Section 17(2)(d) of the Constitution.

“I have spoken to a dry-eyed mother who lost four children to gold mining related lead poisoning in Niger state at Shikira – a community that no longer exists because it has been run over by terrorist who now mine the gold,” Baiyewu recounted.

She also cited cases in Kogi, Gombe, Ebonyi, and the Niger Delta where host communities suffered environmental degradation and rights violations.

The Global Rights director warned that the rising demand for lithium, cobalt, and bauxite, essential for renewable energy technologies, must not lead to a repeat of such human and environmental costs.

“The principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) ensures that communities are not passive victims of extraction but active participants in deciding how their resources are used, and how the benefits are shared,” she stated.

According to her, while world leaders gather at the 80th UN General Assembly in New York under the theme “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights,” the critical voices of host communities remain absent.

“The people whose rights are most vulnerable to violation and abuse… whose heritage are being traded under the guise of a just energy transition” are often excluded, she lamented.

Baiyewu noted that the West African Mining Host Communities Indaba was conceived to give such communities a platform to shape their own agenda, share strategies, and demand accountability.

“This annual gathering has become a vital platform for mining host communities to make their voices heard, exchange strategies, and shape the policies that directly affect their lives and environments,” she said.

This year’s theme, The Intersection of Green Mining and the Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent, she explained, would help interrogate how Africa can balance the urgent global demand for green minerals with the equally urgent call for justice and equity.

She told participants that discussions had already begun at a pre-Indaba event on what a just energy transition should mean for West African host communities. Over the coming days, researchers, policy advocates, and grassroots voices would propose solutions for advancing both sustainability and human rights.

“How do we ensure that the transition to cleaner energy systems does not reproduce old patterns of exploitation, displacement, and conflict?” she asked.